Australia: My First Trip Abroad

Me and Bird

By Lisa Mallett

I just went on an epic adventure!  At 40- years old I went abroad for the first time in my life and I had an amazing opportunity to study social work in Australia!  How cool is that?!Mel Apt View

I just spent three weeks studying child welfare and mental health in Melbourne with eleven other students from Ohio State.  My reasons for choosing this program were very specific.  First, I wanted to learn as much as possible about the social work profession and various systems within Australia in preparation for my move to Western Australia after graduation.  Second, my interest is in trauma and crisis intervention, so I saw this as the perfect opportunity to learn from Aboriginal people about their experiences with intergenerational trauma and how they navigate systems in their own country.  On both counts I feel like this trip was a huge success.

VACCA was a very important visit for all of us.  We learned a ton about Aboriginal history and culture.  It is also important to note just how much other child welfare agencies work with VACCA and rely on them for assistance with Aboriginal children that have been brought into the child welfare system.  They have developed several programs that help children learn about their culture and develop a strong sense of pride, strength and belonging.  We also learned about the huge impact the Apology had on the national consciousness in 2008.  This was an official apology by the Australian government for the atrocities inflicted on the Aboriginal people known as the Stolen Generation.

I think the biggest impact VACCA had on my feelings regarding racial and ethnic issues in the U.S. is that we have never as a country apologized to our Native American people for the atrocities we inflicted upon them during colonization.  There was an obvious cathartic response in many people in Australia when that apology was made and it really meant something to most Aboriginal people.  Backing that apology up with increased social service assistance for Aboriginal people has really had a positive impact on their lives.  While there is still much healing to be done in Australia, they have at least started on the path.  I wish that we would do this for our original landowners.

Intergenerational trauma is such a complicated and pervasive thing.  As professionals, we diagnose someone with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, etc., and then present a prescription for healing that tries to fit our healthcare system model.  What can get lost in this approach is the generations of crisis and trauma that a person may come from and how complicated and personal the unraveling of that story becomes as treatment continues.

We now know that trauma literally changes the brain itself.  That when exposed to trauma, neglect, or abuse, children will grow up with a brain essentially built to deal with those issues, thus compromising the development of other cognitive functions.  Seeing this play out in children and young people in Australia and then seeing their social support responses was extremely beneficial to me.  I can now take back my knowledge of other trauma-informed care systems and see how they apply to my experiences with children and adults in the States.  I feel like this program has broadened my understanding of trauma in people of all ages and it has certainly served as a catalyst for my current and future work in trauma and crisis intervention.

Melbourne Sign

New Ideas and Final Goodbyes

The Mapsys

By Angela Borgerding and Lisa Mallett (aka “The Mapsys”)

Our last week in Melbourne has been fast and full of interesting agency visits.  lighthouseWe started the week at Lighthouse Foundation and had a truly amazing presentation on trauma in children, including the physical effects of stress, abuse, neglect and prolonged trauma on brain development.  We also had a great Skype conference with the folks over at ReachOut in Sydney.  Their work providing education, resources and peer and professional forum space for young people, regarding mental health and wellness, is truly unique.  VICSEG provided us with a full day of introduction, education and discussion on their work with immigrants, refugees and those seeking asylum in Australia.  They offer assistance with job training, English as a second language, housing, and cultural awareness in communities and schools for recent arrivals to the country.VICSEGRosaParks

(VICSEG: Rosa Parks’ message has spread around the world!)  

Beyondblue is an organization whose vision is that all people in Australia achieve their best possible mental health. They “create change to protect everyone’s mental health and improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities affected by depression, anxiety and suicide.”  beyondblueTheir goals include prevention and early intervention, reducing stigma and discrimination, and active intervention and recovery. One of their programs, “Kids Matter”, targets primary schools and helps to promote good mental health in schools. It is not a program, so much as a framework, which allows schools to exercise flexibility by incorporating already existing programs, or to use as a starting point to begin the development of a mental health focus in the school.  This early introduction and promotion of mental health well-being allows for it to develop and normalize within the culture. Evaluation of this program has demonstrated that it increases children’s performance in school.N2

The final week also saw our final goodbyes to Melbourne and last minute visits to important city locales, sights and eats.  Some of us made sure to get to that museum we missed, or that store we saw on the way to somewhere else, or to experience that special meal that would leave us unique and personal tales to tell our friends and family about when we return to the U.S.  It was also a time to say goodbye to each other, with the knowledge that we will surely see each other again soon  in O-H-I-O!

lighthousethanks

Connecting Youth in Australia and Beyond

The Mapsys

By Angela Borgerding and Lisa Mallett (aka “The Mapsys”)

During our second week in Melbourne we visited a fantastic organization called Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, whose vision is to create “a digitally connected world where technologies are used to support young people to feel safe, healthy and resilient.”  YoungandWellOne of the great things about this agency is that they invite young people to share in the research process to come up with solutions to mental health and wellness issues affecting themselves and their peers   This group of individuals, also known as  The Youth Brains Trust acts as an advisory board to Young and Well CRC, helping them to explore and promoted technologies that will have the best outcomes for young people struggling with mental health issues.  This process has been so successful that even years later they have had many young people remain involved with the organization.

One type of solution Young and Well CRC has envisioned is the use of mobile applications to reach young people.  While they have created several already, one such app, called “@appreciate a Mate”, can be downloaded for Android and iPhone.  This app was created to assist young people in expressing positive messages to each other over several different platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  This app is interesting in that it is very easy to use, it is fun, and it can communicateripperappreciation very simple messages that actually hold a lot of meaning.  They also received feedback from boys to ensure that the available content was appealing to them as well, and that they had the opportunity to send meaningful messages to each other that may otherwise be more difficult as males to communicate.

Another interesting component to this app is that the artwork for the messages was designed by Zuni and Digital Arts Network, Sydney by artists who are young themselves.  Young and Well CRC wanted to ensure that young people were included in as many stages of the creation of @ppreciate as possible.  With messages of appreciation created by 33 young graphic artists from around the world, it is easy to find just the right message to show someone you care.  In only a few weeks after launch, Young and Well CRC reported that over 35,000 messages had been sent by users of the @ppreciation app.

During many of our agency visits there seemed to be a focus on providing client centered and client driven services. Our visit to the Y-PARC emphasized this by their ability to model skills for the client as well as by empowering them to make their own choices in regards to medication, lifestyle, and overall well-being. By empowering youth (as well as having legal provisions that allow youth to make these decisions) this agency is able to truly to demonstrate the social work core value of respecting the inherent dignity and worth of a person. This core value not only focuses on emphasizing a client’s self-determination, but recognizing and working with the individual differences among clients. It was very clear that Mind has a clear mission to work with clients at an individual level, while also maintaining their responsibility to the broader society and encouraging the community to be involved in the client’s treatment.

Apart from our visit to many great agencies this week, we had the opportunity to experience travelling the Great Ocean Road. Mindfulness and meditation were both deeply incorporated into the trip, as well as emphasizing being fully present in the moment. Mindfulness has recently become emphasized in our social work program and has been encouraged for students to use for self-care throughout their course work and ultimately their career. Discussions around our experience with meditation and mindfulness on the trip led to the realization and understanding that each person has their own form of self-care and although we should encourage a wide variety of self-care techniques, it is ultimately up to the individual to decide what self-care practices they find most useful.

Meditation 2

This led to a discussion on remembering that the client is the expert in their life and that when working with any group of people it is important to remember that each individual  lives their own experience and heals in their own way. When a client comes for services our job is not to prescribe them what we deem the solution to their problems, but rather to help them reach an understanding of their problems and to encourage them to solve their own issues. Although this can be difficult and we sometimes believe that we know best, we must remember that it is not our job to fix clients or to tell them the correct way to change their lives.

Where in the world are we?

The Mapsys  By Angela Borgerding and Lisa Mallett (aka “The Mapsys”)

Most of the group left Columbus around 4 pm on Thursday May 5 and 39 hours later landed on the other side of the world. Dazed and confused we somehow managed to gather our belongings and make our way to our lodging. The rest of the day is pretty much a blur as everyone was so tired no one really remembers anything from that day.

By the next day we managed to gain our bearings and realized there was a unique new city that lay ahead of us.
We began to travel around seeing the sites of Melbourne. Throughout the week we began to notice a common trend amongst our group…the navigation struggle. Flagstaff StationMany a times we have managed to get lost, misread signs, ended up on the wrong side of the road, stood in the middle of the road, among other touristy mistakes.  A common question within the group became “where are we?” followed by “does anyone know where we are going?” or a similar “what’s the address?”

One might wonder how getting lost in a new city might have any connection to social work, but truth be told, this is what our clients face on a daily basis. They struggle with navigating many unfamiliar systems that come with complicated maps and hard to read road signs. They struggle with getting to meetings on time because their kids can’t find a second shoe or because they are so tired from sleeping on a friend’s couch, or worse, the street. We have a system for clients that is ironically not designed for them.

And that is where we come in. The social worker is like the tour guide. Our role is to guide clients through this new and confusing system to the best of our ability. We try to avoid “over servicing” clients, just like a tour guide knows not to try to visit too many sites in one day. We try to plan routes for clients that allow them the least amount of room for confusion; much like mapping out a tram route, the less changes the better. Finally, we have tricks of the trade fromGraffiti Alley our experience that allow us to know how to best serve the client. We take the confusing map of a system and help our clients navigate it.  Much like doing what the locals do to learn how things work in a city, we use evidence-based practice to utilize the tools that have been proven to work.

When determining the easiest and quickest routes to our various destinations, it became clear that the process became exhausting at times, even for the most fit among us.  What does this mean for our clients?  We always run the risk as part of a system of getting bogged down in policy, procedures, details and ever increasing roadblocks to successful service delivery to our clients.  For instance, if we put them on a path to recovery that takes too long, they may risk the loss of children, home, employment opportunities and other basic living needs.  The path may be too exhausting and the client too overburdened with all they need to accomplish to reach their end goal.  As social workers, we should always strive to decrease that burden as much as professionally possible and consistently work to improve ease of delivery for our clients.  However, we too are human.  We are there in the experience with the client, ensuring that if either party makes a wrong turn, we are able to navigate back to the track together.

Southern Cross Railroad Station